SOLSC March 24: Dancing, ’70s Style

            I’ve been reading my journals from 1975 and 1976, when I had just started working at the Village Voice. One of the things I wrote about in those journals were the Christmas parties, which later on were often held at whatever the hot club of the season was. In my mid-30s by then, I knew the only time I’d ever get into those clubs was at the Voice Christmas parties. The Limelight, the Tunnel, Heat were among them. Did we go to Studio 54? I can’t remember. The Tunnel, as I recall, was dark, so dark that a friend I’d invited and I never found each other. The music was loud, so loud you couldn’t have a conversation.

            But I didn’t go to these parties to have conversations. I was there to dance, dance, DANCE, with anyone, everyone, and if no one was available, I’d dance by myself.

            So today I went to Spotify and found a mix giving me every song that takes me back to those nights. So much so that I’ve gotten up to dance myself around my living room. Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September,” Donna Summer’s “On the Radio,” Fred Wesley’s “House Party,” Kool and the Gang’s “Fresh” (okay, that’s the ’80s), A Taste of Honey’s “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” CHIC’s “Everybody Dance,” Sister Sledge's "He's the Greatest Dancer," so many more.

            Maybe you have to be of a certain age for these songs to conjure memories and make you move. But if you like to dance, track these down on Spotify or YouTube, and maybe you’ll be up and dancing too. 

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I’m participating in the 16th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 24 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

Dancing at the Reunion

Dancing

            The music started, a little jazzy. Where was the Motown? Where was the disco? The punk? It was my 50th college reunion, and this was the Saturday night dance.

            My college had had two weekly dances. Friday night was folk dancing, Saturday night was the twist party. I loved rock and roll, had loved it from the moment I heard it on the radio years before, on "Jukebox Saturday Night." I loved it even though my mother was soft on Elvis Presley -- she didn't denounce him like all the other grownups did. I loved the syncopated rhythm, the rough yet crooning sound, the harmonies.

            I only knew how to dance by watching "American Bandstand." No one ever asked me out on a date, so I didn't get much practice. Instead, I would hold onto the doorknob of my bedroom, as though it was my partner's hand, and try out steps.

            Now, at college, the twist was hot (go, Chubby Checker). I was shy, didn't go anywhere by myself, but my roommate, from Long Island, was brash and had enough attitude for both of us. The twist was the quintessential lone dance -- you could have a partner, but you didn't need one. I would stand near the wall, but still feel part of the dance floor, and twist away. It was easy, and I felt wrapped up inside the music, the rhythm (Ray Charles, "Hit the Road, Jack"; Del Shannon, "Runaway"; the Shirelles; the Everly Brothers). I almost didn't want a boy to ask if we could  dance, because then I would become attached to him, I would have to talk, ask questions, wonder what he would want to do next or if he would want to take me outside, and that was the part of dating I knew nothing about.

            More than 50 years later, I was no longer shy. Dancing was still the abandon of movement, rhythm taking over my feet, arms, hips. I no longer needed to stay at the edgeofthe dance floor, though I couldn’t be the first one. A woman, maybe in her 50s, danced onto the floor, and then I leaped up. I could be second.  (She said, maybe a little gleefully, she was humiliating her son. He remained in the darkness, a beer in hand.) We danced in the old rock and roll style, alone but but oriented around each other. The couple from the 1950s class joined us, with a friend. I was glad that the first people out on the floor were the oldest.

Slice of Life, 50th Reunion

Reunion

            There are so many slices I could report from this past weekend. It was my 50th college reunion, two days packed with events, weather, people I knew, people whose names I vaguely remembered, people whose faces were definitely not familiar. But the main reason I was there was Saturday night’s Div Dance. (It’s too complicated to explain wht “Div” means, so I won’t.)

            Saturday morning and into midafternoon, it rained. A deluge. A big tent on the central lawn, the venue for our meals, and the dance, was on ground that had become a quagmire. So the dance was relocated to the theater building.

            After dinner I wandered down to the theater, fireflies flickering right and left. Outside the building half a dozen people had gathered, one woman with a bottle of wine on a folding chair. (Was the chair hers?) We were waiting for the sound system to be set up. I chatted with a man from the class of ’75, a faculty member around his generation, and a graduate from 2007. But I was impatient for music, so I and the ’07 graduate went inside to see what was the holdup.

            The theater stage was the main floor to the left of the entrance, with stadium seats rising to the right. Near the back wall was a table with an array of electronic equipment. A faculty member I knew from New York was testing the fog machine; it worked. He was waiting for the  DJ to arrive with the computer.

            The DJ turned out to be a lawyer from one of the 1990s classes. She was wearing a blue T-shirt that proclaimed: "Antioch College Bootcamp for the Revolution." She needed a min-in cable, but no one knew what that was. She was handed a USB cable, but that didn’t work. There was a lot of unplugging and switching of cables. The soundboards looked like the control panels of a small plane, much more complicated than a pile of vinyl, stacked on a turntable. I wandered over to the seats and talked to a graduate from the mid-’50s.

            Finally the music started, a little jazzy. Where was Motown? Where was disco? Where was punk? The empty dance floor lit up, but I couldn’t be the first one. A woman, maybe in her 50s, danced onto the floor, and then I leaped up. I could be second. We danced in the old rock and roll style, alone but but oriented around each other. The couple from the 1950s class joined us, with a friend. I was glad that the first people out on the floor were the oldest.